Will legislators send budget to governor early to ease an override?

House Speaker Dean Cannon and Senate Budget Chairman J.D. Alexander have both confirmed it for us: they are a week ahead of schedule in budget and session deliberations.

Does that provide credence to the rumor floating through the halls of the Florida Capitol -- that lawmakers will finish the budget early, send it to the governor, thereby triggering the one-week rule , which gives him only one week to review, sign or veto the spending plan?

The idea is that if lawmakers don't like some of the budget decisions of their hard-to-read governor, they can override his vetoes without calling themselves back into special session. Sound plausible?

Alexander isn't biting: “That’s not our plan,'' he told reporters today. "It is theoretically possible but I think these issues are so profoundly difficult for the legislature to consider that at the end of the day -- although we are perhaps a week ahead of schedule -- I expect we will exhaust that week coming to terms with these different decisions."

Cannon wouldn't say either: " It’s too soon to predict,'' he said. "We should at least end on time maybe early."

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